INVESTIGATION. Nicolas Daragon allegedly approved a Muslim college project out of patronage, only to back down under media pressure.
At first glance, this is a sadly banal story, a mixture of clientelism and guilty credulity towards Islamists. A mayor sells a plot of land to an association close to the Muslim Brotherhood so that it can build a private high school there directly opposite the mosque.
The local council even goes so far as to amend the local zoning plan on June 27, 2022, specifically for the association, in order to make the plot in question buildable. The weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo reveals the full extent of the building project in an article published on July 21, 2022. The town is called Valence, in the department of Drôme, and the association Valeurs et réussite.
Faced with the protests, the city council, in a pathetic climbdown on October 3, 2022, takes a new decision and annuls the decision of June 27. However, this is not enough to settle the dispute. On 23 January 2023, the Journal du dimanche quoted from an intelligence note describing a councillor “under the influence of radical Islam”.
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We do a poll every year,” says an anonymous deputy mayor. Nicolas is re-elected in every possible alliance. He doesn’t need votes. If he had to find some, courting Islamists in Valence would be a very bad calculation. For every hypothetical voter we gain in the Muslim community, we would lose two or three in the Armenian community.”
Between 10% and 12% of Valence’s residents have Armenian roots. The town hosts a French-Armenian school and an Armenian heritage centre. The pastry shop closest to the town hall is Lebanese-Armenian. Not to forget, several MPs of Armenian descent are in the city’s parliamentary majority.
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Here in Valence, too, nothing is that simple. The local ecosystem of Muslim associations seems oversized compared to the size of the metropolitan area. Valeurs et réussite (Values and success) is only one part of it. L’Ouverture, La Plume, D’Clic Valence and the Collectif pour la connaissance de l’islam are active in the cultural field.
Amana organises funerals with burial in Muslim lands. Mawaddat is the local Muslim marriage bureau. Touche d’espoir and Jeunesse active et solidaire are active in the humanitarian field. The Collectif des mamans indignés 26 takes care of pro-headscarf propaganda. Paroles communes takes care of inter-religious dialogue. The Conseil français des citoyens (formerly Cojep Valence) spreads Turkish propaganda. For a city with 62,400 inhabitants, that’s quite a lot.
To speak of a network is not an exaggeration, because the same personalities can be found in different organigrams. The one who is chairman here is secretary there and vice versa. By no means all of them are fundamentalists, but the openness of the whole thing towards radical Islam is striking.
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“Fontbarlette-Le Plan is something like the heart of the dispute between the prefect and Nicolas Daragon,” summarises a social worker. She follows a logic of republican appropriation of the neighbourhood. The mayor, on the other hand, demands police officers to keep order, not more. He has given up on integration. He no longer believes in it. The mosque is becoming inevitable, La Plume and L’Ouverture are already doing after-school care and cultural animation, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just Lle Plan and Fontbarlette… Do they want a collège now too? I think that’s the least of the current majority’s worries.” (…) Le Point